Rep. Nick Begich the Third went on at length in his speech to the Legislature about his tax-free dividend bill, the text of which has not been released, without ever confessing that this is a campaign gimmick designed to fool the gullible that has no chance of passing.
Read MorePresident Trump’s decision to start a war with Iran is a “strategic master stroke,” according to a press release Gov. Mike Dunleavy got the Wall Street Journal to publish.
Right. It was brilliant to go to war with Iran without a plan to deal with Iran blocking oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, starting a regional war with a growing death toll and disrupting the world economy.
Read MoreThe payments to the four public trustees of the Permanent Fund—$400 for each meeting day—have remained the same for nearly 45 years. This is one aspect of the Permanent Fund structure that needs an examination as we mark the 50th anniversary of the constitutional amendment that created the fund.
Read MoreAt a 20-year reunion in 1976 of delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention, Katherine Nordale asked one of the convention's key advisers, John Bebout, what he thought of the plan to create the Alaska Permanent Fund that year.
She said she was shocked to hear him say, "You are establishing a fourth branch of government."
She later wrote Rep. Clark Gruening, a key legislator who helped create the rules for the new fund, to warn him against allowing the enterprise to exercise too much control over the state.
"Unless it is managed very carefully and vigilant scrutiny is exercised every step of the way, the people of Alaska may reap little benefit, but millionaires may be created to the detriment of the general welfare of Alaska," she wrote Gruening.
Read MoreSen. Dan Sullivan voted last summer for the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cuts Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion over a decade and provides $1 trillion in tax benefits to the richest 1 percent of Americans.
A Sullivan support group is now claiming that Sullivan worked to strengthen Medicaid.
Read MoreThe Pearl Creek charter plan will exacerbate the growing gap in public education between the haves and have-nots.
Read MoreI now believe that the $250,000 “independent” study has been kept secret in part because the consulting firm did not denounce the theory that the Red Dog mine and its transportation system might have been built without a state subsidy.
If a subsidy was not needed, that would mean that AIDEA cannot take credit for all of the economic output generated by that mine and that AIDEA’s economic benefits would be trimmed by billions or tens of billions. We will know if I am right if the Senate Resources Committee succeeds in getting AIDEA to release the “independent” 2024 study.
Randy Ruaro, executive director of AIDEA, testified this week that the treatment of Red Dog finances in the 2024 report was a topic that prompted AIDEA to require that Northern Economics revise the “independent” study.
Read MoreNorthern Economics completed a $250,000 “independent” study of AIDEA in early 2024 and was paid in full, but the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority never released it to the public.
Now the head of the agency says he knows of no reason why it can’t release the report. This is a welcome change and long overdue. The Senate Resources Committee is awaiting copies of the 2024 report.
I began writing about this in late 2024 and have done so many times, but AIDEA claimed the study was a draft and that it was not a public document. Draft reports are public documents under state law.
Read More“ What is the new applicant name for Alaska LNG Project?” Sen. Cathy Giessel asked Glenfarne Vice President Adam Prestidge and AGDC President Frank Richards in an email Thursday afternoon.
“I want to be able to refer to the project accurately,” she wrote.
Giessel referred to a March 2 posting by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that said the company had applied for a name change, but the details were in a letter that was marked “privileged,” meaning it is a secret.
Glenfarne says it was all a big misunderstanding. The name was not changed.
Read MoreThe head of the state Division of Elections, who is supervised by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, refused Wednesday to release the legal advice provided to her by the Department of Law that led her to reveal private information on all Alaska voters to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Asked by Sen. Bill Wielechowski if she would release the legal advice from state lawyers, Elections Director Carol Beecher did not want to respond.
“I will be conferring with the Department of Law in regard to your question,” Beecher said.
Wielechowski asked why she had to talk to the Department of Law when the decision on releasing the information is entirely up to her.
Legally, the decision is entirely up to her. There is no basis for claiming it should remain secret or for her excessive hemming and hawing.
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